


letting the water fall

by pxint



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, because i’m emo, this is about That trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 17:52:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16748827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxint/pseuds/pxint
Summary: “Stay with me instead,” Alex says, and Dylan blinks at him over their facetime call with something that could really only be described as shock. As if Alex would let him live in a fucking hotel.





	letting the water fall

**Author's Note:**

> i am excited and terrified!

“Hey,” Dylan says. His voice is grainy and deeper than usual over the phone. It always is, and Alex still isn’t used to it.

He’s already gotten the news. He knows what happened, Dylan waited until the news broke to call him, and Alex had barely a minute to process the notification before his phone went off.

“Dyl,” He says, and he can feel just how much his voice shivers when it comes out. It doesn’t sound right, too loud in his empty room, with the blinds tilted upwards against moonlight trying to sneak in. He’s staring intently at his laptop screen, the article he’s pulled up bright against the darkness. 

_Coyotes, Blackhawks swing trade_ , it’s titled casually enough, but the contents of the article are what make Alex’s heart squeeze.

“Did you hear?” Dylan asks after a moment. He sounds nervous, like he doesn’t want to talk about it. Alex hopes he’s just overthinking it.

“Yes, I - yeah.” Alex swallows, reading over the words _trade_ and _Dylan Strome_ over and over, because he isn’t sure if he’d believe it even if someone tattooed it to his arm. It’s. A lot. “Chicago, right.”

“Yeah,” Dylan says with a small laugh. It sounds robotic. “With you.”

Alex gnaws on his bottom lip, and tries to steady his rapid heartbeat. “I’ve missed you.”

\- 

There’s something thick in the air when Alex sees Dylan for the first time in what feels like years - or, well, what might as well be _years_. Aside from games, which don’t really count. 

Dylan’s wearing a bitter smile that looks like its grown weathered on his flight to Chicago, like he’s trying his hardest to keep it from splitting into a frown, and Alex just doesn’t know what to say. 

This is so much. It’s everything. 

Dylan’s got a small suitcase by his side and he’d told Alex he’d probably be staying in a hotel and Alex just - “Stay with me instead,” he’d said, and Dylan blinked at him over their facetime call with something that could really only be described as shock. As if Alex would really let him live in a fucking hotel. 

He doesn’t regret it per say, he just thinks he’s not going to be able to survive this. 

Alex lets him into his place wordlessly, and bites at the inside of his cheek while Dylan toes off his shoes in that way that makes him cringe. 

“You’re gonna be great in Chicago, y’know,” Alex says, because he’s not sure what else to say, and Dylan glances at him with a mix of fifteen different emotions splattered across his face. Alex can’t really pull them apart to distinguish what exactly that look means. 

“We don’t have to talk about that,” Dylan tells him. “You really don’t have to be fake and shit with me. Chicago is - it was going to happen. We all knew. It could’ve been anything else just as easily.” 

Alex doesn’t press, because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how it feels. He just can’t help but try and ignore the blossom of hurt in the pit of his stomach, where he thought they could be fine. Then again, Dylan was traded from the team that drafted him, after getting sent down, brought up, and sent down again. It’s - he doesn’t get that. But he’s going to try. 

So, he just nods and offers to take Dylan’s bag for him. 

“Just right down here,” he says when he’s leading them down the hall, and Alex walks right past his own room because he doesn’t think they’ve reconnected to the extent that Dylan would be comfortable staying in there with him. They sleep in different rooms, which wasn't always the case.

The guest bedroom is crisp and white, and Dylan thanks him, sounding a little dry. He looks tired, like he hasn’t slept since the trade, and maybe he hasn’t. Alex doesn’t know his life, but he knows Dylan takes shit to heart. 

He just wants to make him feel better, he wants to take care of him.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Dylan promises, like he _knows_ , and Alex tries not to let anything show on his face. Keeping himself carefully composed. For all he knows, they could very well avoid discussing this for another week.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, g’night.”

“Yeah, night.” 

\- 

It’s not like Alex hasn’t spent mornings with Dylan before, but this is different. This is Chicago, this is Dylan on _his_ team again, this is _them_. They’re not what they used to be, and Alex thinks maybe they can work up to that, but for now this is okay. 

For now, Dylan in nothing but his tacky flannel pyjama pants flipping pancakes is okay. And Alex pretends not to watch the way the sunlight from the window casts shadows across his back, highlighting the dimples and divots. Everything he can’t touch.

When he turns around, the rays catch on his hair, and Alex has to try his hardest not to swallow his tongue right there.

“You don’t have to cook for me,” he insists, as Dylan passes him a plate.

“I mean, I owe you,” he says, and Alex hopes he’s not imagining the way his gaze lingers, like he’s thinking about what shared mornings like this used to mean. When Alex would be sitting there with marks on his shoulders, watching Dylan chatter gleefully as he makes him cheesy heart shaped pancakes. 

These ones are just circles, but Alex isn’t complaining. He’s bleeding with nostalgia and every time Dylan catches his eyes something inside him hollows out, but they can have that again maybe. It’s not impossible, as long as he doesn’t let go.

\- 

Alex catches himself watching Dylan’s face when they’re lounging around on the couch, reruns of Friends playing on the TV.

It’s probably not as bad as Dylan catching him, which is okay until he does, and Alex tries to look away but he’s not quick enough. Of course.

“Are we gonna do the thing,” Dylan says, as if Alex knows what he’s talking about. “I mean, are we gonna talk about this? Or -“ He makes this expansive gesture with his hand, and Alex thinks he knows what it might mean.

“I don’t know,” he says anyways.

Dylan looks sceptical. “You seem like you wanna talk.”

“I do,” Alex admits. “But, like, what is there to talk about?”

“Everything, probably.” Dylan shrugs, and then he blows out a breath like just this much speaking has taken everything out of him. “Nothing’s weird between us, right?”

“Right - yeah, of course not,” Alex says.

Dylan nods slowly. “Okay,” he says, and he pauses. Breathes. “I missed us.”

Alex feels like a weight gets lifted off his shoulders, and he can finally rest easy. It’s freeing. “I did too,” he says, like it hasn’t been clear in the lost looks he’s been wearing shamelessly. 

And that’s all he needs. 

\- 

Living with Dylan is easy. Driving to practices with him is fun, especially when he lets Dylan choose the music because his taste is questionably good and Alex will honestly listen to anything that gets Dylan shout-singing with him. 

They fall back into old routines quickly, which could be good or bad. It really depends. Dylan makes them breakfast, they cuddle up on the couch to watch movies, Uber Eats ends up becoming a godsend within a matter of days, and - it’s good. They know each other. 

It’s just. Some old habits die hard, and some don’t die at all. 

Like when they’re tired after a bad loss, and Alex’s brain is running at a mile a minute, lacklustre and all over the place. It’s nothing new when he presses up against Dylan under the dim light of the hallway to their rooms, and it’s familiar when Dylan _lets_ him. When Dylan leads him back against the wall and bridges the gap between them. 

His hands are warm and curious, and Alex can’t even remember the last time they’d done this, when he’d let himself get lost in the heated slide of his lips. He has to tip his head back to reach him, but he’s always liked that.

Alex can’t help but overthink every little thing because of it. Like when Dylan pulls back and squeezes his hip, and hundreds of things flash through his head all at once.

“Bed?” He asks, and his heart warms at the little smile he gets from Dylan in return. 

It’s been a while, but just like you don’t forget how to ride a bike, Alex doesn’t forget how to ride _Dylan_ \- how to take him apart fast or slow, and Dylan knows him just as well. Almost unfairly so.

“ _God_ , Dyl,” he gasps before he comes, and he never wants to forget the way he gets kissed through it.

\- 

There’s a bruise on Alex’s thigh in the morning.

Every part of him knows it’s not from hockey, but he still tries to convince himself of it, just so he doesn’t feel bad when he presses his fingers to it while he jerks off in the shower - coming harder than he ever has on his own. 

He thinks Dylan knows, just because he kisses the side of his head when he steps out of the bathroom, and Alex almost drops to his knees right then and there. 

“You feeling okay?” Dylan asks him, because he always treats him like glass the morning after, and Alex has to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

“So okay,” he says, and decides to push everything down just to reach up and kiss him. 

It’s barely a brush of their lips, but it gets a pleasant reaction out of Dylan. Something small, wrapped up in bliss, and Alex wants. 

\- 

When they’re out for dinner one night, Dylan hooks their ankles together underneath the table, and Alex pretends that it doesn’t make his breath catch in his throat. 

Dylan keeps talking about whatever - baseball, their teammates, how he nearly dropped his phone in a sink full of dishwater - whatever. But Alex can’t stop thinking about the way Dylan presses their ankles together, and it makes him feel wanted. 

It’s like that little corner inside of him begging to be wanted finally gets what it craves, and Alex just isn’t sure how to handle it. Even when it’s things as small as this. And honestly, he hopes he never gets used to it.

\- 

He asks Dylan to move in with him, because he’s technically still searching for a place to stay and “get out of Alex’s hair.” Which - he really isn’t. If anything, he _wants_ Dylan in his hair. 

It’s not like he hasn’t been, explorative fingers tugging and guiding him along when it counts, but this is still a concern it turns out.

So, “You could just stick around here, y’know. We could be roomies,” Alex says conversationally, and hopes he doesn’t sound needy.

When Dylan tells him they could try that, and they settle on splitting the rent, it’s nothing beyond unexpected that Alex ends up falling asleep cuddled up next to him more and more often. Alex’s bedroom becomes _their_ bedroom, and the guest room is really just where Dylan keeps his things, because they both know where he’s spending the night.

Alex isn’t sure how the fuck he got so lucky, and part of him still can’t believe it.

\- 

It gets good - better - over time. When the sting of getting traded eventually wears off, when they can talk about a future together in Chicago, when they play the hockey he’s always dreamt they could play together. 

They’re in. They play where it matters, in the Show, and Alex doesn’t think he’d want it any other way with any other person. 

They’ll win some, they’ll lose some, but no one has a flawless record, and from the way they’re looking they might just make something out of this. If they keep trying, scoring, doing just what they’re doing. Alex doesn’t want to jinx it, so he knocks on wood, and Dylan doesn’t go a second without chirping him for it.

But he doesn’t know how bad Alex has wanted this, all of this. He gets Dylan again and it’s just - it’s perfect. It’s exactly what he wants.


End file.
